Demon-shaped
by MeridianGrimm
Summary: When Neuro detects a mystery with demonic flavor, he and Yako investigate the source of the activity and happen upon a child with unusual origins.
1. Chapter 1

This series is the result of a theory on tumblr that I took way too seriously (there's a link to it on the AO3 version of this) about the idea that Akabane Karma was raised by Neuro and Yako and isn't entirely human. However, because I feel strongly that Neuro and Yako's relationship is platonic, I wanted to write a group of stories about the three of them with the twist that Karma was adopted rather than their biological child. This is the prequel story about how the detective duo ended up adopting Karma as a baby.

In the interest of full disclosure, there aren't many Assassination Classroom characters in this first story because they're all very young at this point. I plan to include more in future stories. Also, I know basically nothing about babies, so I'm saying that anything I get wrong is due to differences between human and half-human/half-demon babies.

* * *

"I smell a mystery, slug."

After half a year of getting used to his sudden appearances again, Yako didn't even jump. "C'mon, Neuro, I'm eating. I'm supposed to meet up with Kimura-san in a couple minutes."

"This one is strange," Neuro commented, casually pulling her into a headlock. "It feels like there are demons involved."

Yako struggled out of habit rather than any real thought that she could get away. "Other demons? I know there's you and Zera, but I thought the human world was poisonous to de– oh, that's why it's strange, isn't it?"

Ignoring her, Neuro continued: "The scent of demonic activity doesn't linger long on Earth. Come immediately and I'll use your head as the test subject for Evil Hammer."

"I think you mean _'or'_ you'll use my head as a test subject." Yako continued to struggle as Neuro dragged her out the door. "I'm coming, okay? Give me a minute to pay the bill."

"No time."

This must be something big, then. Yako sighed and made a note to go back to the café later. She knew the owner pretty well, and it wouldn't be the first time she'd left Takashima's in a hurry for a case, but it was still rude. "Let me at least text Kimura-san." Kimura Ran was a police officer that she'd met during a negotiation mission last October. Kimura was about ten years older than Yako, give or take, but she was so enthusiastic about her work and loved cooking almost as much as Yako loved eating, so they got along splendidly. Their friendship had been cemented after Yako caught the criminal trying to frame Kimura for murder. The case was enough to get Yako's foot back in world of detective work, and when Neuro returned from Hell her career shifted even further back into investigative jobs.

Neuro dropped her on the ground and kept walking, intent on the mystery. Yako knew from experience that if she lagged too far behind, she'd probably end up with her shoulder dislocated or wallet missing. She hastily pulled out her phone and Akane, currently in her mobile form, offered to compose and send a text to Kimura.

It was sunny when they left the café, but by the time they got to the public park about ten blocks east the sky was starting to cloud over. The park was eerily empty, perhaps because of the muggy weather and the hint of coming rain. There were no old ladies on the benches talking about their grandchildren, no cyclists swerving to avoid soccer balls and wayward toddlers, and no musicians starting up sets on the grass.

Then she heard the crying.

Neuro was about ten meters in front of her and there was another screeching sob as he approached a bench next to the pond. Yako knew the feeling. She jogged to catch up as the demon bent over a small, abandoned baby carrier perched on the bench. "What's a baby doing out here all alone?" she wondered, looking around. "Is there someone else here?"

She peered in the carrier and blinked: there was no child. Neuro was quicker than her and identified the source of the sound crawling around just off to the right in the dirt underneath an oak tree. Before the demon could do something regrettable like twist the kid around or break a bone, Yako snatched the child up from the ground, holding it close and getting a better look.

Yako didn't know much about babies, but this one definitely looked like a boy, with wet, red hair falling in his chubby, inquisitive face. He was old enough to be crawling around, maybe close to walking? His eyes were a curious gold color, and there were red streaks down his chin and on his clothes that didn't look like fruit juice. "That's…"

"Not human," Neuro finished, leaning in close. His own eyes were glowing at the puzzle in Yako's arms. "This one feels like a demon, as I thought, but… muted. He's either a _very_ low-level demon that has adapted to thrive on Earth or the result of an ill-fated encounter between a demon and a human. Given the conditions we've found him in," he added, gesturing to the discarded carrier, "I would guess the latter. Children are hard to come by in Hell and none of mine would knowingly leave their offspring here unattended, even those of lower power."

Yako was a little touched at the sliver of morality in the monsters until Neuro continued, "If they really didn't want the brat, he'd be fed to the Emperor's hunting dogs instead." Yako exhaled and squeezed the child a little tighter. He'd stopped crying the moment Neuro got close, which was probably a better indication than the unsettling eyes that he was a demon. Otherwise, it meant the kid had an extremely poor ability to judge danger. It would probably get him into trouble someday.

"Well," Yako began, "I haven't had any work involving missing children before, but I guess it would make the most sense to take him to child services or the police until we've tracked down the human parent. We can reunite them."

"You've missed something." Neuro pointed at the boy's clothes, which were wet like his hair. "It hasn't rained today."

"What? Then why…?" Yako looked back at the carrier, and then past it to the pond. An ugly anger filled her stomach as she realized what happened. "Oh my god. Someone tried to –" She broke off, ready to punch something and glad she was holding the little boy so she couldn't. "Neuro, we're going to find this one. Human, demon, whatever did it." The blood streaks made sense now: someone had probably held him underwater and he'd bitten them with those sharper-than-human teeth poking out.

"We will solve the mystery as always."

"Any thoughts on where to start?"

She expected the sharp, mildly terrifying smile that came out during cases when no one else was looking, and she wasn't disappointed. "Evil Retrace will lead us to where the brat basket came from."

"You mean the baby carrier?"

"That's what I said. Evil Retrace only works on things that aren't alive, so it would be pointless to try tracing the imp back to wherever he was before."

"If we're tracing the carrier, then wouldn't it just lead back to where it was manufactured?"

"Fool. Evil Retrace can see the path of an object back two hours in time, no more." The air around Neuro shifted, the way it always did when he revealed his true form, and suddenly there was a grotesque creature in his hands, the ugliest mouse Yako had ever seen. There were too many eyes and unlikely limb proportions and stinking ooze and claws that were frighteningly long.

The Retrace monster scampered in circles around the carrier for a minute before darting off towards the park entrance. Neuro was after it in a flash but Yako took a moment to grab the carrier and buckle in the baby before taking off after them. The kid wasn't fazed by the jerky movement, gnawing on a rubber toy in silence.

"Neuro, slow down!" The demon pretended not to hear her and eventually Yako had to stop, setting the carrier on the sidewalk and putting her hands on her knees while she caught her breath. She'd already been sweating buckets from the humidity, but running and missing lunch took their toll too. Rain would be nice. Then she laughed at the unexpected thought, still panting. She'd only just gotten back last week from a three-month case in India, where monsoon season was in full swing, and here she was wishing for rain already.

India had been beautiful, breathtakingly so, and Yako ached to go back someday. During the case she'd met some wonderful people that she was sorry to leave behind, and the curry there was to _die_ for. A rash of thefts had left the country missing twenty-three of their most prominent national treasures and Yako had been called in to solve the case. It had been hard because the twenty-three sites were scattered across the subcontinent and all unaffiliated with one another, but she and Neuro had split up for the case to cover more ground and move the investigation along faster. It was further proof that he trusted her detection skills now, despite his verbal abuse over the phone whenever she called to check in with him. It was satisfying to tie the case up as an equal with him.

Yako was jerked out of her memories by the baby, who started acting up again. "Hush, shhh, it's okay. Are you hungry?" She held out the orange that had been stuffed in her purse, suddenly aware that she had no idea what to feed a (possibly?) one-year-old half-demon. The boy shrieked louder and people on the street were starting to stare. Yako could just picture the headlines now:

 _"_ _Former High School Detective Secretly a Parent?"_

 _"_ _Child Cries at the Piggish Negotiator née Detective!"_

 _"_ _Katsuragi Yako: Kidnapper?"_

Maybe he'd calm down if she picked him up? Yako reached down, intending to release the buckles, but the boy got a hold of her finger and bit down with teeth that felt as sharp as they looked. "OW!" She withdrew her hand, wincing at the marks on her thumb, and the baby giggled. Then she felt claws clamp onto her shoulder and pull her into a pretzel. " _OW!_ _Neuro!"_ The demon detective was the culprit the second time, and Yako shrugged out from under him when he relaxed his grip, her muscles aching from the strange angle they'd been forced to accommodate.

"The mystery isn't going to wait all day," he hissed, then straightened up and projected his voice to the listening strangers. "Sensei, I know you like it when your boyfriends bite you, but you shouldn't make an infant satisfy your masochistic tendencies."

" _Neuro!_ "

"Come, Sensei, your humble assistant has retraced the necessary steps and it's time for us to visit the police station."

"Oh." Yako gripped the baby carrier's handle, careful to keep her hands out of reach of the child. "I guess we should get to that, then."

"As you wish!" Neuro trilled, his innocent façade shining with pure enthusiasm. Yako rolled her eyes.

They walked for a few minutes before Yako began, "So whoever was carrying him came from the police station?"

"Evil Retrace ended in the middle of a street when the time limit was reached. The imp was in the park for over an hour."

"Okay," Yako replied, deciding to play along with his vague explanation, "so why are we going to police station? I'm guessing you're not really interested in the baby's welfare, so this stop probably isn't to hand him off to them."

"This child is our only clue to a mystery that is certain to have a strange flavor. I wonder if a mystery created by a demon in the human world will taste different."

That still hadn't answered the question, but Yako connected the dots herself. "We're going to look for any cases that look like the work of demons because we know that the baby'd nonhuman parent was in the area at one point?" Neuro frequently stressed the importance of blending in with humans – which Yako personally thought was hypocritical, given all of his over-the-top antics during cases – but it wasn't impossible that other demons would be more lax in their camouflage. "Why not ask Godai if he's heard of anything?"

He waved her off. "Slave #2 is working on another project for me right now, one of higher importance than this."

"He's Slave _#2_? C'mon, aren't we past this? I'm not a slave anymore! Am I?" Neuro gave a self-satisfied smile but didn't answer. " _Am_ I?"

"Ah, look, the police station." Neuro waved at the officers, chattering about what "Sensei" was up to lately, and Yako dropped the subject. He was _probably_ teasing her, but he'd been in a fey mood since they got back from India. Of all the foreign countries they'd travelled to for cases, he had seemed to like it there the best. Because they'd been split up for a while, Yako didn't know what he'd seen that sparked his interest in the place, but hints in their conversation suggested that he genuinely enjoyed the country. He'd been dogged about learning to do henna, which was a surprise – he never showed interest in anything that couldn't bring him a mystery – until Yako realized that he wanted to draw it on _her_. Thankfully, the dye was almost invisible now – Neuro favored obscenities over flowering designs, and she'd had quite a time getting taken seriously despite her reputation.

Yako eventually waved over Ishigaki and Todoroki and explained that she and Neuro were looking for reports of especially strange crimes. The baby carrier got raised eyebrows from Todoroki, but Yako jumped in with a quick, non-demonic description of events before Neuro could make up something embarrassing.

Todoroki pointed Neuro in the direction of the records room and pulled Yako aside. "You can't cart around a baby during your investigations, Yako. For one, it's dangerous. Two, you could get in some serious trouble if someone reports him missing and you have him. He should be with child services."

"Okay," Yako replied weakly. _Neuro's not going to be happy, but it's not like there's anything we can –_

 _BANG!_ Yako immediately ducked and Todoroki whipped around, hand on her holster. There was smoke pouring out from the vending machine next to the restroom, filling the room.

"Oh dear," she heard. "I was just trying to get Sensei a green tea. I don't know what happened." The smoke detector tripped and the alarm went off, water spraying violently from the overhead sprinklers.

There were groans around the office as paperwork got soaked, but everyone moved briskly towards the exits. Yako was ready to join them with the baby, but Neuro gripped her arm and dragged her further into the station.

"What are you _doing?_ "

"We need the brat until we've found our case. Let's go." So it was a distraction, then. They ended up in the (thankfully dry) records room with the baby carrier on a desk while Evil Fridays crawled over the cabinets that held case files from the past few months.

Yako picked up a file at random and began skimming the first pages. "You're going to blame me for this anyway if we get caught," she explained when Neuro looked at her askance. "I might as well do something."

Twenty-eight minutes later, the Evil Fridays began to squeak. Yako was not entirely sure how they did this, given that they were semi-mechanical eyeballs with no visible mouths, but she'd recognized that there was no point in questioning the 777 Tools anymore. "Did they find something?" She plucked one wayward Friday out of the baby carrier before the kid could try to eat it and moved over to the section of floor where more Fridays had migrated excitedly.

Neuro picked up the file and examined it more closely. "Indeed, it's a double homicide on the other side of Tokyo that was especially violent. Almost two months ago. No suspects arrested." Yako peered over his shoulder at the crime scene photos of Kanemoto Denji and Fujino Hideaki, who'd been found completely decimated in a less-travelled alley. It was… grisly, so much so that there'd initially been some speculation that a wild animal had caused their injuries. There'd been two knives found around the bodies, possibly indicating that they had attempted to defend themselves from whoever or whatever did this to them. However, the knives were clean and none of the blood samples collected at the scene could be linked to a third individual. It had been tentatively ruled as yakuza work because of the area where the bodies had been found – the police thought that the victims may have inadvertently witnessed an illegal transaction.

"You think this was a demon?"

"The level of carnage is right. They were ripped apart without any human weapons."

Neither victim had any living family members, but the two had worked in the same office building, so Yako, Neuro, and the nameless child took the train over. The ladies at the front desk immediately recognized the famous Katsuragi Yako and her assistant, and they were ushered to the floor where Kanemoto and Fujino had worked.

Yako approached the man at the desk next to Fujino's former workplace. "Excuse me, I'm sorry for bothering you, but could you tell me a bit about Fujino-san and Kanemoto-san? Was anybody angry at them, that you know of?"

"They were bullies, the pair of them," the man answered bluntly. "If there was any interpersonal trouble in the office, it was caused by those two. They tried to haze the newcomers and were consistently crude to the women in Marketing. I don't reckon anyone here killed them, but I can say that no one is sorry that they're not around the office anymore."

"Oh," Yako replied, surprised by his honesty. People tended to speak better of the dead, especially if they thought they were being suspected of murder.

"They've had reports of harassment filed with the police against them, from what I've heard, but if you have access to their files, detective, then you probably already knew that. Never formally charged, because there wasn't enough evidence for a court case, but…" he gestured vaguely. "It's my opinion that they did it."

Yako thanked him for his help and talked to a few other office workers, who shared the same opinion of Kanemoto and Fujino. She made a note to take a closer look at the victims' personal files, which Neuro had skimmed in the police station but hadn't discussed with her yet.

When the child started to kick up a fuss again, Yako beat a hasty retreat to a nearby convenience store to buy diapers and eight boxes of the tasty-looking snacks that were on sale at the front. Changing a baby couldn't be that hard, right?

Yako struggled in the ladies' room to get the diaper folded right. Akane fretted from her spot on Yako's phone, but didn't have any useful experience either, so the detective ended up calling Kimura-san, desperate for advice. The older woman talked her through it over the phone, very kind but also amused and curious about the kid. And on that note, Yako realized that she couldn't just call him "the kid" indefinitely. "How old is he, Yako-chan?"

Yako groaned as the child's screech threatened to deafen everyone in the convenience store. "Dunno. More than a year, I think? How did you get Masayoshi so well-behaved?" She'd seen Kimura's baby boy before, and he was a sweet, _quiet_ slip of a child.

"Well, Yoshirou and I both come from big families, so we've had practice with kids. We've only got the one right now, but since he's fourteen months old we're thinking about more."

Yako smiled. "Good luck, then. Thanks for helping," she added genuinely as she wrestled the kid back into the baby carrier. She stifled a gasp when she saw that his grip on the changing board had left a hand-shaped dent. He was _strong_.

"Anytime. Feel free to email me with any more questions until you get him back where he belongs, okay? And make sure to feed him. If he's a year old then he's probably okay to have the same foods as Masayoshi. I'll send you our list."

"Got it. Thanks again." After opening the list on her phone, Yako bought more food and took the baby to a bench outside, peeling off the top to a yogurt and stirring in the mashed strawberries. Mmm, the yogurt was pretty tasty. "Wait, no, _no_ , I have other food, this is for him. Sorry, little guy." She shook her head to clear it and pulled out a new spoon. "Open up." The now much-quieter baby opened his mouth obediently and, aside from chomping down on the spoon with more ferocity than expected of a one-year-old, his behavior seemed to suggest that he was content.

She looked up to see Neuro standing in front of her, with no indication of how he'd gotten there. "Anything else from their office?" she asked.

"No."

"One of them was saying something about the victims being accused of harassment. Did their files have the names of the women who accused them?"

"Yes. It only took some quick computer searching –" via Evil Script, probably "– to get their home and work addresses as well. We will take Slave #3 with us."

"He's got a name."

"True, but, as we are not in possession of it, 'Slave #3' is functional."

Yako opened her mouth to argue, then realized that the probable alternative was Neuro making up a name for the kid.

Not the best idea. Calling him "Three" would work until they knew more


	2. Chapter 2

These next two chapters ended up being more "mystery" than "fluff with Karma", so sorry about that. I started writing and the mystery part spiraled out of control.

* * *

Forty minutes later, Yako found herself in a comfortable chair with a sleeping Three in her lap, across from one of the women who claimed that Kanemoto and Fujino attacked her. Noguchi Aimi poured tea and slid the cups across her desk, settling in to tell her story. While walking back to the station after getting her nails done, she'd been approached by two men who tried to get her to come with him. Noguchi had started running and the pair gave up once she reached a more populated area near the station. She went to the police and reported what happened, and she picked out their photos easily from the list of all the people suspected of assault in the area.

"So you weren't the first victim?" Yako asked. Noguchi nodded. "Can you tell me where you were on the evening of July 2nd this year?"

"That was the night they were killed, right? I saw it in the papers. I hosted a work event that night that went from 9pm to 2am, and I've got enough witnesses to prove it."

The second woman they visited, Sawaya Kaiyo, was the first reported victim of Kanemoto and Fujino. Her attack had been during the previous winter, so the two men had likely thought that being bundled up would keep her from seeing their features. "I may be a singer and look like easy prey, but I grew up in an aikido dojo and I knocked their asses into the snow," she told Yako and Neuro casually. Because she hadn't had time to go through procedures with the police –she was already late for her concert in Osaka – Sawaya went through their wallets and wrote down their names while they were trying to recover equilibrium. After the concert she called the police and told them the whole thing, but since no one in the street saw their faces and she hadn't taken a date-stamped picture of their licenses or anything, there wasn't much that could be done.

"Can you give us an alibi for the night Kanemoto and Fujino were killed?"

"Sure. I was in Miyagi prefecture that weekend for a concert. You can check social media for the pictures."

"Where were you attacked?" Neuro asked suddenly, derailing Yako's list of questions.

"It was on the corner of the street where I was getting my nails done."

Yako sat up straighter. "What was the name of the place?"

"Uh… Yasuda's? Yeah, that's the one." It was the same place that Noguchi had left before being harassed.

Their first question to Taira Satsuki, professional writer and self-proclaimed shut-in, was where she'd been just before the assault. "Yasuda's Nails," she answered, motioning them to the armchairs. "I'm not a huge fan of paying for that sort of thing, but my sister's wedding was the next weekend so I made an exception."

"Where were you on the night they died?"

"Who died?"

"Kanemoto and Fujino."

Her eyebrows jumped up. "They're dead?"

"You didn't know?"

"I was in the hospital for a while after they got done with me – I'd probably be dead if that group of kids hadn't come around the corner." Her voice was steady, but her expression slipped into something strange, a combination of remembered fear and sadness. "The two guys ran away 'cause the kids _definitely_ dressed like they were in a gang, but they were just students coming back from karaoke. They helped me out." After she got out of the hospital, she'd gone back to her shut-in ways. She'd missed her sister's wedding.

Yako broke the silence that formed when Taira's story was finished. "Can you tell me where you were on July 2nd in the evening?"

"Probably here in my apartment," she answered, gesturing to the room. "The lobby has cameras if you need to check and make sure I was here and not out killing those bastards. I heard from the police that the other two women who reported them got away safely, but that doesn't mean there weren't more victims. They just may not have been as lucky as us."

Yako thanked her and they left. "We should talk to someone at the place where all the victims came from. They may have been involved." She recalled Mozu Takayasu from one of her early cases, the self-proclaimed God of Hair who targeted his clients in order to "improve" them. It should be hard to believe that there might be other people with the same mindset as him but, after being connected to the investigative world for almost four years, Yako had learned not to discount anything as a motive for murder just because of its apparent irrationality.

"Of course, louse." Neuro was already heading in the direction of the station.

On the train, Yako brushed through Three's hair with her fingers and he scrunched his face comically. His hair was dry by now and she'd washed the blood off his face, but Yako didn't have anything for him to change into so his clothes were still slightly damp. He buried his face in her stomach, less like he wanted cuddling and more like he was trying to headbutt her. She laughed and brought him closer anyway. "You're kinda cute when you're not being noisy," she told him. Akane patted the top of his head and he blinked at her, reaching out little hands to pat her in return. Yako had to stop him from yanking on the loose strands in Akane's braid as the secretary flailed in panic. " _That_ was not cute," she told him firmly. "Play nice, okay?" He warbled irritably in return, trying to free his wrists.

The bell jingled as Yako opened the door to the salon and the spindly man at the desk looked up. "Katsuragi Yako! What an honor! I have several celebrity clients but no one that's a world-famous name. I'm Yasuda Raiden, the owner of this establishment. What can I do for you?"

"Actually I'd like to talk to you about some of your clients: Noguchi Aimi, Sawaya Kaiyo, and Taira Satsuki." They settled into seats the waiting room.

"I didn't see anything," Yasuda answered pleasantly. "I told the police the same thing. As far as I knew before those officers came, the four women got home sa–"

" _Four?_ " Neuro purred, pouncing on the word with a grin that stretched eerily far. "I believe that Sensei only mentioned three names, Yasuda-san. _Do_ tell us who the fourth victim was."

Yasuda's eyes widened. "I-I meant three."

"You were involved with Kanemoto and Fujino in assaulting those girls?" Yako asked, voice hardening.

"No, I wasn't. I just misspoke, that's all." Eventually, by gentle persuasion and appealing to his sense of justice, the detectives got Yasuda to talk.

Okay, he actually talked because there were some thinly veiled threats made by Neuro, but that was the demon's strategy for every situation.

"I knew about it," Yasuda blurted, shifting anxiously on the couch in the waiting room. "I'd noticed them loitering on the corner in front of the store and I told them to beat it, but they said that they couldn't be arrested for being on a public street. Then the two thugs came in the next night after the other stores were closed and threatened to burn down my shop if I told anyone they were acting suspiciously. I _wasn't_ involved with whatever they were doing, though."

"But ignoring them put your clients in danger," Yako pointed out.

Yasuda flinched. "None of them were hurt _that_ badly, not even Satsuki-chan and Megumi-chan, and the two men kept their word and didn't burn down the salon."

Yako struggled to keep a lid on her anger. "Why didn't you say something after they died, then? They couldn't threaten you anymore from the grave."

"Well it – it would be bad for business if it got out that there had been criminals in the area." Yako picked up her phone and called the police, effectively ending the conversation. He'd had information about confirmed assault cases and had purposely concealed it. Local officers showed up and eventually took over, leaving Neuro, Yako, and Three with the name and address of the woman Yasuda had called "Megumi-chan", the fourth victim.

Yako checked her watch as they walked towards the train station, noticing that they'd been tied up with Yasuda for longer than she'd thought. "Neuro, she's not going to answer at this time of night, but tomorrow's Saturday, so she might be around in the morning."

"Hmm. None of the three women so far have had any trace of the demon world on them. Perhaps this fourth suspect will be our connection."

Yako blinked. She'd forgotten about the whole "demon" aspect of the case, though Neuro's evidence of demonic activity in the city area was sitting snugly on her hip, nipping at her shoulder. "Right. Goodnight, then, Neuro."

"Sleep well, louse." He was eyeing the child, though, and didn't bother to stifle a chuckle at her expense.

She would have replied, but Akane nudged her as her phone began to ring. She glanced at the caller ID. "What's up, Godai-san?"

"Hey, Yako. The monster's with you right now, right? Could you put him on for me? His phone's dead."

Yako clicked a button. "You're on speakers."

"Right. So Neuro, about the matter I've been lookin' into, we might have a break. Amazingly."

"Go on," Neuro replied, intensely interested. His eyes glowed the same way they did when there was a mystery afoot.

"The information company heard through one of their branch offices that there's a man who claims to have seen a gate. 'Course, that's not what he _called_ it, but from what the report said and from what I heard directly from him, it sounds like what you're looking for."

"Godai, what's this about?" Yako asked.

"The monster here has been having me look into any possible rumors about finding or making gates to the demon world." Shortly after Neuro's return the whole thing had come out about Neuro's true origins to Godai. He was horrified, but not terribly surprised. "Knew he wasn't fuckin' human," he'd muttered.

"You're very earnest about this," she remarked to Godai. It was half-comment, half-question. "I can't imagine there are a lot of contacts at Mochizuki who take this kind of topic seriously."

"Anything to send the bastard back to hell, right?"

Yako laughed. "So that's your motivation."

"If you do not finish your report about this subject," Neuro threatened casually, "I will make you eat your own intestines and hang you by your toes out the tallest building I can find."

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there! Okay? I talked to the guy when he was called into our headquarters. Apparently a couple months ago he was out on a job for one of the company's branch offices and on his way back he stumbled across a guy in an alley with gigantic hands that didn't look like hands. Our man, Kagome, hid himself behind a dumpster because he couldn't go back the way he'd come and he wasn't stupid enough to try and mess with something that's dripping blood and got ugly hand-claw things. Sound familiar, freak?

"So the monster is going about his business or whatever and then Kagome said that the guy stumbled over to the closest wall and started tracing something with his claws. His description of this wasn't real good, because I'm pretty sure he thought I didn't believe him. So the claw guy is scratching symbols and suddenly there's a loud _crack_ and the wall falls away. There's this weird blue light coming out of it, and the guy makes some creepy, guttural sound before hauling ass into the new hole in the wall. After a couple seconds, the light goes away and it's back to being a wall again an' some of the blood on the ground is dissolving like acid. Kagome says he's never run as fast as he did after the coast was clear that night. Wanted to forget the whole thing, but he had to explain to his boss why he was late finishing the job, which is how I eventually heard about it."

Yako sighed. Kagome hadn't reported the incident to the police because he was in the middle of stealing something, plus the officers wouldn't have believed him.

After a pause, Godai added to Neuro: "So I just wanted to keep you updated on the hunt for the gates, monster, because those nasty little fucking eyeballs you sent last time tore up my office and I couldn't find anything for a week."

"They must be getting low on energy if it was only a week," Neuro commented mildly. "Continue working on this matter, slave." He snatched the phone from Yako and ended the call. "Akane, make a note in the phone's calendar function to punish Slave #2 if I haven't heard from him by Sunday. Then order him via text message to find this Kagome's address."

"Neuro, are we –?"

"No, Yako, you continue here. This matter is a personal project of mine." At her questioning look, he continued. "The lack of demonic miasma here is a chronic problem. No matter how much I hunger, I cannot stay here forever. My need for miasma must, sometimes, overcome my desire for human mysteries. It would be ideal to design a method for stepping between Hell and Earth without the associated uncertainty about where and when I might return. It would be most irritating if I emerged on the moon next time or in an empty parallel universe. There are no mysteries there." He didn't say it, but she also heard the other part of his thought: it would be a pain to find and raise another partner to his high standards if the time skip was substantially longer next time.

Yako smiled. "Okay then. I'll keep looking into this case." This whole thing was a stretch, since their investigation was predicated on the idea that Neuro could just _guess_ which crimes were the result of demon activity. In addition, Neuro hadn't felt anything demonic with any of the three suspects so far, more evidence to suggest that it was a dead end. However, until she got to the conclusion, Yako wasn't going to give up; Neuro had the unnerving habit of being right 95% of the time, usually because he processed things differently (and more quickly) than the rest of the world.

"If nothing else, I trust Akane to take care of things efficiently." Where Yako would have once taken offense, now she just rolled her eyes. "If you need help stretching your eye muscles, Yako, I can assist."

Knowing that would involve some form of mild torture, Yako declined. Then, looking to change the subject, she added: "You look pretty excited about this."

Neuro laughed. "What are the chances of finding four and a half demons in one city? Having myself and Zera on Earth is reasonable given our strengths, but discovering the existence of a mid-level demon, its half-human brat, and a demon that creates gates all in the same country requires quite literally astronomical odds. There is some mystery as to why so many of our kind emerged here. Perhaps during pursuit of this I will find a gate to secure access to demonic miasma."

"That would be a relief," Yako replied, though her feelings about the subject were mixed. While it would be nice to not worry that Neuro was going to run out of miasma, the potential for other things to come _out_ of the gate was a worrying thought. "Good luck, then. Keep in touch, and don't 'borrow' someone else's phone again while yours is dead. Just charge it." Neuro didn't acknowledge her remark, simply jumping up to the roof of the train station and disappearing into the night.

It took approximately three seconds after his departure for Yako to remember something important. "Shoot! I was going to ask about how much sleep demon children get." Akane tapped out sympathetic sounds with the phone's keyboard. "Like, do they need sleep? Neuro does, so the babies probably do, but what kind of conditions? Complete darkness? Loads of blankets? A soundtrack of creatures being torn apart? I don't even know where to start."

Akane nudged her. \This one is not a full demon, according to Neuro. Maybe he'll be more like a normal baby/

"I don't know anything about those either, and that brings up the whole question of whether Neuro's knowledge will be any help at all because Three is only half demon."

\I can research proper care for human babies, and presumably the child has been living on Earth, so he can't need anything too strange. Probably no yokai eyes in his soup (◠‿◕✿)/ Yako smiled at Akane's joke and stepped up to the train as it pulled in.

"Okay, do that when we get home. I'll call my mom now to see if she has any practical advice." Katsuragi Haruka was surprised to hear from her daughter at this hour and Yako tried to be vague yet specific about why she needed to know how to take care of a one-year-old. She eventually ended up spilling the whole thing (minus the demonic bits), and her mother laughed.

"Swing by here and I'll get some of your baby stuff out of the attic. We needed extra-strength bars on your crib to keep you from chewing your way out in the middle of the night, so it's very durable."

"Thanks, Mom. Love you." After Yako disconnected, Akane accessed the phone's internet function and got to work looking up child-rearing practices. "You're a lifesaver, Akane."

\Anytime, Yacchan!/

Yako declined her mother's invitation to stay the night, just _knowing_ that if she agreed, the baby would probably do something blatantly demonic and destroy half the house. She did accept her mother's offer to drive them back to Yako's apartment with the crib and other necessities. They assembled things inside and her mother's tone turned serious as she asked, "Can you tell me why you haven't taken him to the police? I'm not accusing you of anything, dear; I'm just worried that there will be consequences."

"Neuro thought it was important for him to stay with us until the case is over, since we're looking for the child's parents."

Haruka hadn't questioned Yako much about her "assistant" over the time he'd been with them, but seemed to recognize that Yako thought very highly of him as a detective. "Good luck, then," she said as they finished setting up the crib in Yako's bedroom. "I'm only a phone call away if you need me."

Three cried when Yako left the room to brush her teeth, but when the detective came back Akane was making shadow puppets on the wall and he was apparently appeased. "You need a lot of attention, don't you?" she murmured to the kid, tucking him in. He tried to bite her hand again.

"Goodnight, Akane," Yako whispered as she slipped under the sheets.

From her nightstand, Akane tapped out a reply. \Sleep tight! The two of us have lots of work to do tomorrow (^_^) /


	3. Chapter 3

This one's short, but Part 4 is about 3500 words, so look forward to that, I guess.

* * *

"I guess no one's home?" Yako said after trying the doorbell twice. The mobile number that Yasuda had given them was disconnected, so she hadn't been able to ask if Saturday morning was a good time to meet with the fourth harassment victim.

\Perhaps she's still sleeping/

Yako looked around at the typical suburban neighborhood. "Dunno. Maybe one of the neighbors knows how to get ahold of her."

First they tried the houses directly on either side of the victim's. "I don't know much of anything about those folks," the woman of the first house responded, leaning out of the doorframe just far enough to peer next door. "I reckon you know her better than I do."

"Why's that?"

"That's her infant you're holding there."

"He is?" Yako couldn't hide the surprise in her voice, but this development meant they were _getting somewhere_. Three was related to the fourth harassment victim – it was the first solid indication they had that the double homicide could be connected to demonic activity and therefore Three's origins, as Neuro had postulated. Could the murderer be Three's mother, then? A lower-power demon would want to avoid attention on Earth even more than Neuro, but would still have no problem killing humans in extreme situations, if Neuro's strength during his weak moments was any indication. Neuro, of course, wouldn't stoop to murder unless it was necessary, but not all demons fed on mysteries generated by people. If Three's mother was a demon and fought back against Kanemoto and Fujino out of self-preservation, or tracked them down later to carry out vengeance, a demon's unnatural power would trump humans more often than not. She would've had motive and ability to kill them.

Yako suddenly remembered that she had to explain herself to the neighbors, who had begun looking at her with some suspicion when she revealed her ignorance about Three's mother. "I'm actually looking to locate his parents. I found him wandering yesterday in the city and I'm trying to figure out where he came from as well as work on this case. Can you tell me _anything_ about the family? What kind of people they are, maybe?"

"The missus is a sweet-faced girl, twenty-something years old I'd guess, and she's married to a strange young man."

"Strange?"

"He has a smile as sweet as syrup, but there's something almost _eerie_ about him, like his expressions are just a mask." Her husband shivered behind her. Yako could only imagine what kind of person would be married to a demon, especially one that may not have the same respect for human life that Neuro did. Or maybe _he_ was the demon. "We aren't close enough to them to know anything else. They keep to themselves, so I don't think anyone around here will have much more to tell you, but the wife always waves when I'm in the garden and she's out with her son."

"Do you happen to know his name?" she asked, nodding sideways at Three.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know it. I wasn't joking when I said the family keeps to themselves."

Hmm. Yako hid her disappointment and got back on track with the investigation. "Have there been any strange people prowling the area? I have reason to believe that the wife was being targeted at one point."

"Hn, I don't think so." She looked at her husband for confirmation and he shook his head. "No, we haven't noticed anyone who shouldn't be here, and her behavior hasn't appreciably changed. The last time I saw her…" The woman frowned. "That's strange. It's been a few weeks since I saw her outside with the baby."

"What about her husband?"

"He doesn't play outside with his son often. He – goodness." She exchanged glances with her husband again and thought for a long minute. "I think the last time I saw him was on our way to the festival at the end of June. What about you, Kouta?"

"That's the last time I saw him too," her husband agreed. "He might be on a long-term business trip." The pair shrugged.

Was the father the murderer, rather than his wife, and in hiding? Had she killed him? Had they split up? Was he just on a business trip? Everything Yako thought was speculation at this point.

"What do you think, Akane?" she asked after they left.

\I think we're trying to make too many things fit together. Three's abandonment in the park may not have been directly related to this murder case at all. It may be just coincidence that his mother was one of the victims. We don't even know if these four women were the only harassment victims – there could be other suspects. Someone who didn't report it could have made a plan to get back at the duo/

"Yeah, it's a pretty tenuous connection," Yako conceded.

\But you're going to keep investigating regardless, because a mystery is a mystery and Neuro wants this one/ It wasn't a question, but Yako nodded anyway. \I think that the way Kanemoto and Fujino were cut up suggests deep, personal anger in the culprit. There are a lot of people who might have been angry with them. As long as we keep from jumping to conclusions because we _want_ the two situations to be connected, I think we'll be fine/ It was good advice, so Yako kept it in mind.

The man who answered the door at the second house had obviously rolled out of bed when Yako rang the doorbell. When she mentioned that the first neighbors hadn't known much about the couple between them, he shrugged and said, "Yeah, I'm not familiar with them either." He wasn't particularly wordy with any of his answers: "Yes, that kid you're holding is theirs." "No, I don't know his name." "Dunno, haven't seen the parents around lately." "Nah, I haven't seen anyone weird followin' her home."

The third home they tried was across the street, and it was here where they hit gold. The house belonged to a nosy old widow who knew a lot about the goings-on in the neighborhood. So that the woman wouldn't get the wrong idea, Yako explained that she was looking for Three's parents, and the woman nodded when Yako outlined the everyone's descriptions of Three's family. "I'd agree, they _are_ odd folks, but not bad, I think. They seem… happy in their own private world. It's nice to see a change from the misery of other modern couples, you know, with young people getting divorced left and right and treating their kids wrong."

Yako remembered how they'd found Three, soaking wet and alone next to a pond in an empty park, and changed the subject. "Do you happen to know where the husband has been? We've heard that he's been scarce for a while, and their neighbors on the left suggested that he might be on a business trip."

"That's possible, I suppose, since he works at the Miyamatsu Accounting Firm." Registering Yako's blink of surprise, she cackled. "He always wore his badge when he left in the morning and I can tell you for sure that he hasn't been around in months. A job transfer wouldn't be an unreasonable guess. Ah, maybe that's where his wife's been the past two weeks, visiting him, though I don't know how that fits with you finding their baby in the city. Maybe a babysitter lost track of him."

Yako called Miyamatsu Accounting Firm and asked to talk to a manager, giving her name when he came on the line. "Pleased to make you acquaintance, Katsuragi-san. As for your question about our employee, he took a leave of absence for health reasons. I can't tell you more specifically than that."

"That's fine; I'm more interested in when he last came into work. That's not private information, right?"

"Let me look it up. Just a moment." The sound of papers shuffling came over the line. "Okay, on July 3rd he was supposed to come to the floor meeting but didn't turn up. He didn't return any calls we made to his mobile phone, but his wife called that Saturday and filled out the leave of absence paperwork for him." Yako thanked him and disconnected.

July 3rd was the morning after the deaths of Kanemoto Denji and Fujino Hideaki. Yako didn't have to be a world-class investigator to connect the dots there: his absence made an awful amount of sense if he had found out about the two men harassing (or outright attacking) his wife and had exacted revenge before going into hiding to avoid a murder charge.

"But then where _is_ he, and where's his wife? Are they in hiding together? Where does that leave Three's situation?"

\The behavior certainly doesn't sync up with the account that their neighbors gave of them as a quiet, tight-knit family, but then again, they weren't particularly close to any of the neighbors/

"Can you work some computer magic and find out if either of them has any family members who might know?"

\Leave it to me Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ/

* * *

All specific locations mentioned in this story are made up, by the way.


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh, so she's married and has a son now. So what?"

Yako's mouth fell slightly open at the blatant disinterest from the woman's parents. Talking to people about their estranged relatives was always jarring, no matter how often she did it in her line of work. "I was hoping you might know where she was. We found her son during a case and since her husband is currently unreachable, we wanted to speak with her."

Nakamoto-san snorted. "Haven't heard a peep from Megumi since she left home six years ago. A disappointment, that one was. Pretty as anything, but wouldn't go to a single marriage interview. She thought her face would let her get off the hook for anything, the ungrateful wretch."

"Not that her sister was any better," his wife chimed in.

"So you don't know where she is," Yako concluded.

Three's grandfather kept talking: "– guess it didn't help her all that much, though, if she ended up in Igarashi Memorial."

"Wait, Igarashi Memorial Hospital?"

"That's the one. We got a message on our answering machine from them about her being there, since her emergency contact wasn't picking up."

"When was this?"

"Dunno, a couple weeks ago, maybe? Middle of the month."

At the hospital's front desk Yako asked for the woman's room number and was told that there was no one by that name currently in the hospital. "Was she released? I've been looking after her son and have no way to get in contact with her."

The secretary scrolled down her list of patients and then, expression shifting toward sympathy, she began: "She was checked into this hospital until August 14th, when she passed away. I'm sorry for your loss."

"O-oh. I had no idea." If Three's mother had been deceased for just over two weeks, then she hadn't been the person who left Three in the park. It was a relief that she wasn't responsible for that, but on the other hand, who _did_ do it? His currently missing father?

"Her sister should have the funeral details, if you're interested. She visited twice, once on the day of the accident and then once later on, though from what she said when she came in, I think they hadn't seen each other in a while before then."

Her sister had been here? "Did she have to sign in? Do you have any contact info for her?" Maybe she could adopt Three if his father didn't reappear. Three would probably be happier there than with his maternal grandparents, and his father didn't seem to have any living family.

There was, in fact, contact information left by the sister, and Yako left a message on Neuro's voicemail with an update on the situation before heading over to Nakamoto Chizue's apartment building.

When she answered the door, Nakamoto looked shocked. "Katsuragi Yako? How can I help you? Last I read in the papers, you were in India."

"Yes, I just got back. I'm afraid I'm here about a serious matter, Nakamoto-san."

"Oh?"

"Your sister."

Her expression changed. "I see. Please come in. We weren't very close these past few years, but I can tell you about the funeral preparations." Yako adjusted Three on her hip and followed Nakamoto to the small kitchen table. "Forgive me for not writing it down for you; I cut myself preparing dinner the other day." She held up a bandaged hand.

"No, don't worry about it."

"Can I make you some tea?"

"Please don't trouble yourself."

"What about a glass of water?"

Yako relented. "That would be fine, thank you." She spotted sweets in a basket on the counter and hoped that Nakamoto might offer some. Nakamoto sat down with a tray that held two glasses, but no sweets, and Yako bit her tongue to keep from asking as she gulped her water gratefully.

"I'm sorry to hear about your sister," Yako started.

"Thank you. It's been such a shock. I always assumed that we'd drift back into each other's lives." Looking fixedly at the table, she continued, "I understand why she left home, those years ago. Mom and Dad put more pressure on her, as the oldest child, to get married to someone rich and support them. They've never been particularly loving." There was more there, but Yako didn't need to press with questions she could already guess the answer to.

"Do you know where her husband is? He took a leave of absence in July and hasn't been at work since."

"I can't say that I do." Nakamoto coughed and moved to lift her own cup from the tray.

The moment that her hand touched the glass, Three issued the loudest shriek that Yako had ever heard from a living creature. Nakamoto dropped the glass and it spilled across the table.

"What's wrong?" Yako asked him, rubbing his hands comfortingly as he squirmed. Three growled and Nakamoto's hand twitched.

"Perhaps he's tired?" The woman suggested, using napkins to wipe up the water.

"He's never acted like this."

"Is that so?" Nakamoto's voice was pitched oddly, and Yako paused as the thing that had been itching at the back of her mind came to the forefront.

She wrapped her arms around Three. "Nakamoto-san, why didn't you ask me why I was holding your nephew when I came in?" She met the other woman's gaze, her stomach knotting. How had she missed that until now? Part of the reason Yako had decided to come over was to place Three in his aunt's care.

"Megumi's son? This boy? I had no idea." Nakamoto squinted over her eyeglasses. "I don't see much resemblance. As I said, my sister and I weren't close, so it's reasonable that I wouldn't know him."

"No, it's not," Yako disagreed, standing up and taking a step back from the table. "The hospital said that you visited her twice while she was there. They wouldn't have let Three stay there unsupervised while his mother couldn't take care of him, they would have handed him to the police or child services. The hospital called you and you came and then he stayed with you, didn't he?"

"I never saw him. She was awake when I got there, so she could have passed him off to a babysitter."

"Three was there when she got in the car accident. The ambulance would have had to take him with them when they brought his mother to the hospital. If you visited her on the first day, then you _had_ to have seen him."

"I told you I _didn't_."

"If I asked the medical staff, would they say the same thing?"

"No one working there would remember one visitor who visited one patient on one particular day. It's a busy place. You can't _prove_ that I've seen him."

"Not without the sign-in record, that is," Neuro corrected, and Nakamoto did a double take at the demon climbing in her kitchen window. "You see, they might remember that they called her husband, then her parents, and then you. Since none of her other contacts came into the hospital, you would be the most likely caregiver for her baby. Then looking closer, one would see that there are _no other people_ signed in for that woman's room during the time she stayed there, which leaves you as the only option, since there is no record of them bringing the child anywhere else."

"What are you doing here?" Yako asked.

"This is the _fourteenth floor_ ," Nakamoto gasped as Neuro closed the window.

"My own investigation suggested that Three's father was not responsible for the imp's current situation. After listening to your message, I deduced who the would-be murderer must be. It looks like I arrived just in time; the mystery is on the tip of my tongue."

Nakamoto stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"If we tell our suspicions to the police, they can get permission to view the security data from the hospital. Whoever walked out that door with Three will have been captured on their cameras."

"Well, well _fine_ then, better prison that putting up with that _monster_ ," Nakamoto burst out, pointing an accusing finger at Three. "You want to know about this kid? I thought he was normal, so yeah, I took him in for Megumi." Her criminal transformation began, skin turning green and cracking. "I got all his paperwork from her house with the safe combination that she gave me, and I tried to take care of him, I tried _so hard_ , but I realized that there was something not right about him. He's _vicious_. He tore through furniture like it was nothing more than chew toys, hauled himself up fourteen flights of stairs like it was light exercise, and slept for less time than I did." Webbing started to grow between the fingers of her outstretched hand. Her mouth elongated and came to a sharp point, merging with her nose to form a beak. "This is not a one-year-old. This is an _abomination_.

"I took him out to the park yesterday, because he's always better-behaved outdoors. He snapped one of the _metal_ bars on the playground and he wouldn't eat anything I brought and then I noticed that there was no one else around." The top of her head shifted flat, then concave, and Nakamoto poured the remainder of her water into the cavity, looking every bit like a tall kappa, creatures known in stories for drowning humans. "Megumi was dead, her husband was probably dead, and she said they didn't have any friends, so no one would miss their baby if he disappeared." She chuckled darkly. "If only it were that easy. The minute I got his head under the water he fought back with that unnatural strength. Bit my hand and almost broke a bone. After a few minutes I gave up and left him in the pond. Either nature would finish the job for me, or someone else would pick him up. Either way, I wouldn't have to see him ever again. I even burned his paperwork and trashed the baby toys in a public garbage can. But then, barely a day later, the great Katsuragi Yako knocks on my door with the brat on her hip like it's perfectly normal to be toting around a stranger's baby! He doesn't even have a single bruise from where I held him down."

At this point Neuro stepped forward, seeming to fill the whole space between Yako and Nakamoto. " _Itadakimasu_." It felt like the air was being sucked out of the room, and Yako had to keep a mesmerized Three from crawling towards Neuro.

Neuro finished feeding and the woman collapsed. He'd apparently called the police before revealing himself, and when they showed up Todoroki immediately spotted Three crawling around the apartment and gave Yako a look. Yako smiled sheepishly and escaped with Neuro and Three once she'd given the officers her testimony.

"So what happened with Godai's lead on the gate?"

"It seems there are only three and a half demons in the city."

Yako's eyebrows shot up. "You mean –"

"The demon that opened the gate and the demon that had a hand in the imp's creation were one and the same. As I suspected." He kept walking even after Yako skidded to a halt.

"What do you mean, _'as I suspected'_? You didn't mention this to me at all."

He turned around with a condescending look. "You didn't guess? And you call yourself a detective."

"Fine then, oh great Neuro-sama, reveal your deduction." She jogged to catch up.

"Three's father killed Kanemoto and Fujino and was seen afterward by Godai's contact, which is why the demon he described was covered in blood and why only some of the blood was burning off – some of it was his, and the rest was the humans'. The two attackers had moved locations, likely in order to keep themselves anonymous, but the gate-maker tracked them down and you can imagine how the scene played out. However, he was not a strong demon, as demons go; he likely fled to Hell in order to replenish his strength and heal his injuries, and he used up a great deal of energy doing so. Given the description of his extensive wounds from Kagome himself, I would estimate that there's only a 3% chance he survived. Not impossible, to be sure, but I do not believe he will be back on Earth for some decades, if at all."

"Poor Three." Yako knew the sorrow of losing a parent, but to lose both so young was all the more tragic.

"He will grow into a fine demon even without his birth parents. At one year, he's already fearlessly thwarted an attempt on his life. His skills can only improve from here." That was an odd way of putting it, but very Neuro-like. "Those foster families will have their hands full. A child of Hell is different than a human, strong and wild. It takes years to grow out of it and to learn control."

Yako thought about how strong and wild the adults of their species were and shivered at the idea that Neuro was considered _controlled_ by his people. "Ugh. I wouldn't want to inflict a baby _you_ on anyone."

"Do you have an alternative plan?"

Yako took a few minutes to seriously turn over that thought in her mind. "Well the ideal would be to give him to someone who knows about demons. That would help with the whole strength problem and demon-proofing the house. But it would also probably be better to have some human influences too, since he's half human and living on Earth. Three probably doesn't have all the power that full demons have, which could lead to a problem with bullies if he went back to Hell. The best combination would probably be –" She cut herself off, realization striking as her mind caught up with her mouth. "– a combination of human and demon parents," she finished, sighing. "Crud. We're pretty limited with our choices of humans who know about demons and of demons who live on Earth."

Yako knew what had to be done, and she already had an inkling of how daunting her task would be. The logical side of her was warning her that she was about to do something rash. Raising a child with Neuro? The past twenty-four hours proved that Yako was woefully unprepared to be a parent. All of the knowledge that human parents should have under their belt, like feeding and sleeping schedules, how to identify signs of illness, how to potty train, how to recognize important developmental markers, and so on, were all currently missing from Yako's intellectual repertoire. Plus, she didn't think that Neuro had ever been a parent either. The whole idea was pure madness.

On the other hand, though, Yako had unique insight into areas such as making the apartment safer from demon temper tantrums, dealing with uncannily silent movement and wall crawling, and handling unwelcome pranks. After her time working with Neuro, she was also pretty handy with a fire extinguisher and knew exactly how to deal with a wide variety of hazardous materials. And if Three ever got too strong for her to safely stop, Neuro was still around to do it for her. Neuro would have insight into his demonic nature, and Yako would be familiar with his human one.

Furthermore, she'd already gotten sort of attached to Three and she'd hate to see him end up in a home where no one understood him. A half demon with no guidance from his brethren might end up in a bad place mentally and physically, especially if his needs weren't being met by the foster family. A balance of human and demon support would give Three his best chance at growing up healthily.

Three decided to squeeze her arm as she took a breath to speak. "Ow! Three, stop it!" That was going to leave a bruise. Then, turning to her partner, she said in one quick breath, "Neuro, would you be okay with joining me if I decided to take care of him?"

There was a long moment where she thought he was going to say no because it would be too much trouble, but then he grinned. "How could I say no to another slave? This one will be infinitely superior to the rest of the humans on the planet, and I will have the opportunity to train him myself."

Gods, this was a huge life change, not something that should be decided in the span of five minutes, but it felt _right_. She may not be equipped to be the parent of a human, but no other human was prepared to be the parent of a demon.

"Neuro, if we do this, there are a couple of things we have to agree on right now." He gave her a look that dared her to order him around. With a cautious step back, she continued, "First, I should probably be the officially documented parent in case you have to go back to Hell someday." He nodded, consenting to the logical point. "Second, no torture until he's old enough to retaliate." There was no nod, and she waited for a response.

"Of course, Yako," Neuro replied in his totally-lying voice.

Yako let it go for now. "Third, while I realize he's going to be dragged along on our cases during his formative years, he is allowed to join extracurricular activities and have a normal life, if that's what he wants."

"He should develop many kinds of skills that will be good for crushing his enemies," her partner agreed.

Neuro split off for the office when Yako decided to stop at the convenience store with Three. She called up her mom at work while dropping off the groceries and told her the news.

Haruka laughed in response, apparently unsurprised. "If that's what you want, then we're going to need to have a long talk tonight. We could also start to work out the adoption process together – it's going to take some time before you get approval. Is seven o'clock okay to come home? I'm ordering takeout."

"Yeah, seven's fine. I'll call you if I run into a case."

Her mom was unruffled about the whole thing, and Yako thought about everyone else's reactions to hearing that she was adopting a one-year-old. It had been a slow news week, so the papers would probably speculate loudly about why Yako had suddenly decided to become a single parent. Kanae would be initially shocked but then roll her eyes and tell Yako to get married already. Godai would be absolutely _pissed_ when he learned that there was going to be another demon floating around, but he'd still probably babysit in an emergency. "Oh!" She gasped. "Akane, I forgot to ask. Are you okay with this? Since you're living with me too, I should have talked to you first."

\It won't be ordinary, to be sure, but I have faith in you, Yako-chan (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑/

Yako's shoulders sagged in relief. "Thanks. As long as Neuro doesn't encourage his demon traits _too_ much, I think the kid will manage to be halfway normal." She should start making a list of rules now.

\Hn. I'm betting he'll pick up Neuro's curiosity and affinity for mischief/

"Frankly, that's a terrifying thought."

\But I believe the baby will learn your compassion too/ Akane added.

She smiled. "Thank you. I can certainly hope."

There were no clients when Yako, Akane, and Three got back to the office, so Yako flopped onto the couch with her soon-to-be-son. He gurgled pleasantly.

"You're pretty cute, Three." Then she looked over at the room's other occupants and spoke up. "We should give him a name. Nakamoto-san said she burned his birth certificate, so we don't know what his parents named him, but I don't really want Nakamoto-san to decide what he's going to be called for the rest of his life."

\Will he be a Katsuragi, or are you going to leave his family name as it is?/

"That's a good question, Akane. Hmm… I think we should leave it until he's old enough to make the decision himself. I don't want him to feel like we've kept knowledge of his birth family from him."

\Okay. What about a first name?/

"I don't know, but we're _not_ permanently calling him Slave #3. Do you have any ideas?"

She'd been talking to Akane, but it was Neuro who answered. "Karma," he suggested from the ceiling. Yako stared up at him, but he didn't look like he was joking. She thought of India again and how they really _would_ have to go back there at this rate.

\Why?/Akane asked for both girls.

Neuro smiled sharply, and his answer was as simple as it was in line with his way of thinking: "Because any fool who tries to pull one over on _my_ protégé will get what's coming to them."

Well, Yako had no doubt he was right about that.

"It's got a nice sound to it," she admitted. Yako ruffled the baby's hair. "Welcome home, Akabane Karma."

* * *

Hope you liked it! I have bits and pieces of other stories for this crossover series, but it may be a while before anything gets posted.


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